


I'm Just Going Over Jordan (I'm Just Going Over Home)

by SegaBarrett



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: 5x3/5x4, Canon Compliant, Deathfic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 03:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10296692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: The last moments of a wandering man.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Bates Motel and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: These lyrics are from a song called "Poor Wayfaring Stranger", which is an old American folk song. There's a bunch of different versions out there, though I've had trouble finding another version that has the bridge I quote in here ("Jordan River is..."). However, that's the version my choir did, so that's the version I quoted.

The car collides with such force that Caleb isn’t sure what to think at first.

The wind is knocked out of him and he is forced back, gasping and sputtering, looking up at the sky to see dark clouds closing in; or maybe it’s all in his head.

It’s hard to tell what is and what isn’t, these days.

There’s a pressure on his chest, like something’s laying on it, and his head is, his head is… his head is swimming all over again.

And someone is cupping his face.

***

There’s a song that Caleb remembers hearing when he was young, though he’s not sure exactly where. It’s a religious song, after all, and the Calhouns had never been one for religion.

They hadn’t gone to church on Sundays, and Francine Calhoun had smoked and drank and took pills and cursed the church ladies after they would stop by the house and invite her to this or that event (only when she was alone, of course – they didn’t dare cross the threshold if Ray was in a rage). 

So he isn’t sure where he had heard the song, but Norma Louise had loved every kind of music in every way.

_“I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger,  
A-travelin’ through this word of woe,  
But there’s no sickness, toil or danger,  
In that bright land to which I go…”_

Someone is humming it in his ears, playing it on the piano, and Caleb would hum along too if everything didn’t hurt so bad.

How hadn’t he seen the car coming straight towards him?

Or had he?

Maybe he had run into it because there was nowhere else to run; Dylan doesn’t want him, and Norma is gone forever. He’s tired and weak and hasn’t eaten since he left Seattle. His head is still throbbing and… and… there’s still that endless pressure against his chest, not quite broken but pressing down.

He thinks about the big Rottweiler dog that used to tackle him when he was a kid. Big, friendly dog, up until his dad got into a barfight with the owner and the guy told his kids not to play with Caleb and Norma.

“The Calhouns are white trash,” he’d said.

For him, Caleb knows it was always true.

***

_“Jordan River is deep and wide,  
But I’m gonna make it to the other side…”_

He tries to suck in a breath and let it out again, but it’s proving too hard.

And wherever he’s going, maybe Norma is there too. 

Maybe he’s just going home. 

It’s a beautiful moon out, tonight – the two days locked in a basement made him appreciate what it looks like to see the night sky. 

He only wishes he could see Dylan one last time. He’s never told his son just how much he means to him, could never find the words the way they had always tumbled out when he was around Norma. He wishes he could hold tiny Katie again and feel as if the future was as wide open for all of them as it was for her.

That’s not the way that things are going to be, though.

His eyes are heavy, and nothing hurts any longer.

“Norma Louise,” he thinks, and it’s all air and sound and the moon and lupines after that.


End file.
